Unreformed: the Story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children

Incredible research and storytelling. Tragic suffering that can’t be undone. It’s good that the victims could share what they experienced as children and feel a little more understood.

I had no idea about these kinds of “institutions” for children going into this podcast and I’m glad I stayed and learned about these beautiful people who endured so much evil and injustice. Josie did such a great job with sharing these people’s stories with us and articulating the brokenness of our “justice” system. The only issue I had was with the ads, which I know is most likely the distributors fault but I would have much rather preferred they be at the beginning and end instead of strewn throughout the episodes. It really did a disservice to the stories being told, especially when they were so emotional and deep. But the podcast was excellent regardless.

Excellent and important series. I feel more knowledgeable about what may cause an adult criminal, in some instances, to do what they done. That is the blueprint they may have been set with. Also makes me wonder about how many of these schools existed around the country. Well done and thank you.

This is not just a history podcast about an abusive reformatory in Alabama. It is about people who get trapped by institutions — trapped in routine cruelty that no one person is responsible for, and that almost everyone on the outside gets used to, so the abuse doesn’t even have to be hidden. I live in Alabama, about 100 miles from Mt. Meigs, and the front of that plantation-style campus is a familiar sight. My state is already too well known for its troubled schools, courts, and prisons. We pride ourselves on our high rate of violent crime, and whenever that crime rate is in decline, we refuse to believe it. I thought I understood these problems, but the story of Mt. Meigs, its inmates, and the people who ran it, has taught me a lot. And it isn’t just a fable about innocent kids being abused by evil adults. This podcast is for grownups who want to understand how an institution that was founded for a good purpose can go so badly wrong. If you pay attention, you’ll understand how you or I could become an accomplice to this kind of thing, and how high a price we might have to pay to obey our conscience and blow the whistle. All in all, this podcast is among the best I’ve ever heard. The host, Josie Duffy Rice, strikes the right balance of story telling, personal reflection, and taking the listener behind the scenes for glimpses of the fact-finding process. The portrayal of both victims and perpetrators is clear, sensitive, wise, and compelling. These personal stories range from the unexpectedly horrific to the inspiring, and they are all real. It would be a perfect podcast if not for one thing: the intrusive advertising that iHeart dumps on all but the first and last episodes. I didn’t feel strongly about podcast ads until listening to this series, where the ads feel like vandalism. Most podcast distributors handle ads with some regard for listeners and awareness of the series topic. But I guess iHeart is too big and pushy for that. These ads were dumb, repetitive, too numerous, and blaring. There was no pause or signal before or after the ads, and the lengths seemed irregular, so skipping forward (past ads I’d already heard) landed me well past the start of the next host segment of the podcast. This forced me to backtrack into the end of an ad for underwire bras or the wireless carrier I already use (and which I now feel a bit resentful of). I soon gave up on trying to find the start of each post-ad segment. I resigned myself to missing some seconds of content , and I concentrated on not letting the ads break my focus on the episode. Or make me furious, as they did at times. iHeart ad injections are not the worst I’ve known. They are well recorded and slick, and maybe that’s part of the problem. It became clear that from the iHeart’s point of view, maximum ad impressions are the only purpose of podcast distribution, and the content is just there to fill the space between ads. It made me feel like a lab rat. For me, the ad breaks cast a smelly fug over the whole experience. This was my first encounter with the host, Josie Duffy Rice, and the production company, School for Humans. (Good name.) I will definitely look for more of their work, especially Rice’s. Credit goes to the team for basing much of the soundtrack on rhythm and songs created by Mt. Meigs survivors. But I sure hope that their next podcast doesn’t have a heart logo on it.